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MANHOOD IN ITS 
AMERICAN TYPE 



BY 



MARTYN SUMMERBELL, LL. D. 

President of Palmer Institute — Stark ey Seminary 
Vice President of Defiance College, Ohio 

Author of Religion in College Life 

Faith for the College Man 
Special Services for Ministers, etc. 




BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CQ B , LIMITED 



£76* 



Copyright, 1916, by Martyn Summerbell 



All Rights Reserved 



MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
The Gobham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



f/° 



MAY 10 1916 
©CU428923 



PREFACE 

THIS book is given to the public be- 
cause the writer believes firmly in 
America, in the men who under 
God helped make her what she is, 
and in her future. 

Doubtless the keen eyed critic will note 
slips and omissions in these pages, and possi- 
bly more of the latter than of the former; but 
if the reader discovers the message, which is 
none too obvious, the complaints of others 
will not matter. 

It may be said that the tone of the book is 
over optimistic, and that America has her 
share of creatures who pinch and screw, who 
are long in cunning and short in honor and 
who violate every law human or divine, all 
of which is very little to the point, for the 
view here given is of the average American; 
and as for the undeveloped, the degenerates 
and the reversions from type, such have no 
more to do with the real American than the 
litter under the bench of the cabinet worker 



PREFACE 

has to do with his finished product, whose val- 
ue and beauty will long abide after the chips 
and shavings have gone to their own place. 

And too it may be observed that the Ameri- 
can is not commended for his devotion to re- 
ligion. Unfortunately it is the fact that our 
American, who is certainly generous, honest 
and noble hearted, is quite too apt to neglect 
his religious obligations, and is content to 
pass them over to his wife and daughters. 
When he comes to himself he will remedy this 
defect, and when he puts the same energy into 
his religion that he displays in his bridge 
building and his reclamation of the desert, we 
shall see him more regularly at church, and 
there will be more general acknowledgment 
of God, and more reclamation of human arid- 
ities ; and then some other hand can write the 
book in which this bettered condition may be 
fully set forth. And that such desirable con- 
summation may not be too long deferred is 
the hope of the subscriber, 

Martyn Summerbell. 



CONTENTS 

I 
The Delveopment of America 7 

II 

Moulding the American Type ....... 41 

III 

American Traits and Characteristics . . 71 

IV 

American Traits Concluded 101 



I 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICA 



MANHOOD IN 
ITS AMERICAN TYPE 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICA 

TO a student of affairs who is par- 
ticularly concerned with national 
traits and customs, it is interesting 
to observe the frank unanimity with 
which the world at large is coming to charac- 
terize our nation and people as America and 
Americans. Some citizens who are not so 
friendly to us as they might be have raised 
the accusation that we Americans, beguiled by 
our natural acquisitiveness and greed, have 
seized and converted to our own use and ag- 
grandizement these appellatives, which by 
good right appertain to two great Continen- 
tal divisions, and they ask us to cease such 
malversation and misappropriation. But af- 
ter extended investigation there seems to be 
sufficient reason to conclude that our Ameri- 
cans must be acquitted of any misdoing in 
9 



io Manhood in Its American Type 

the business. Far indeed from purloining 
these titles, when we arrive at the facts in the 
case it will appear that they have been con- 
ferred upon us by others, by the world out- 
side, because they are more convenient and 
more appropriate than any that have been 
devised before. In the past it has been only 
with difficulty that a European could charac- 
terize a citizen of this Republic, who hap- 
pened to be traveling abroad. No such em- 
barrassment was experienced in mention of a 
European neighbor, for it was the simplest 
thing possible to point him out in any assem- 
blage and say that he was a Frenchman, a 
Spaniard or a Turk; but when it came to nam- 
ing one of us there was no apt equivalent at 
hand. The English for a long while had a 
way of indicating a man from our country by 
saying, "He is from the States," but as every- 
body understands that was an awkward cir- 
cumlocution. Elsewhere in Europe they 
sometimes mentioned us as ''Visitors from 



The Development of America 1 1 

the United States," which was very correct, 
but if anything it was even more clumsy. Now 
it is a principle with all who study the growth 
of language, that all forms of expression 
which are frequently used tend toward abbre- 
viation. Superfluous syllables are dropped 
out. Troublesome terminations are contract- 
ed. Everywhere and always the complicated 
form gives place to the one that is more sim- 
ple. And so it presently came to pass in the 
most natural way that Europeans who were 
speaking of us dropped the most of that 
tedious form, "The United States of Amer- 
ica," and condensed its essence in the final 
term, "America." And so a man from our 
shores was alluded to simply as "an Ameri- 
can." The practice had speedy acceptance 
and has now become general all over the 
Continent of Europe. A notable instance, 
which shows how widespread this usage has 
become, occurs in an interview which an 
American press correspondent recently had 



12 Manhood in Its American Type 

with Constantine, the reigning king of Greece. 
In the course of the conversation the king al- 
luded to the problem which his country is 
facing in the number of Greeks who are leav- 
ing their country to make their home over 
here. He spoke of more than 300,000 
Greeks who had come to this country, of 
whom about 45,000 returned to Greece to 
fight with the Greek armies in the last two 
Balkan wars. Many of these were now back 
in America. But this second migration, so 
the king stated, was with a great difference. 
The first time they came here alone. Now on 
their second coming they were bringing their 
families with them. The interview is import- 
ant enough at this point to use the king's 
own language. Thus he continues, 

"After they had served their country nobly 
in the Balkan wars they took their families 
with them on the second trip. For then it 
was no longer an experiment, fraught with 
risks and dangers of unknown adventures. 



The Development of America 13 

They had been to America once. They had 
learned when and how to live. They knew 
where to go to get there, even when encum- 
bered with their families and their house- 
hold goods. So when they sailed for the 
west the second time it was with all their be- 
longings, not so much in the spirit of the an- 
cient Greeks, going into the world in search 
of fortune and adventure, as has been the 
habit of Greeks for 35 centuries, but rather 
as prospective Americans, almost all of them 
quitting their mother country forever." 

Here, as it appears, the king of Greece 
readily terms our land as America, and our 
people as Americans. And so we must recog- 
nize, precisely as some achieve greatness, and 
some have it thrust upon them, so we have 
had the title American thrust upon us. 

And now semi-officially we observe that the 
President of the United States has sanctioned 
this usage. For in his great address before 
the Daughters of the American Revolution in 
Washington, October nth, 1915, Pres. Wil- 



14 Manhood in Its American Type 

son portrayed the prime duty of Americans, 
and incidentally endorsed America as the ap- 
propriate name for the United States of 
America. I cite a portion of his speech in 
which he says, 

"It is necessary that we should consolidate 
the American principle. Every political ac- 
tion, every social action, should have for its 
object in America at this time to challenge the 
spirit of America; to ask that every man and 
woman who thinks first of America should 
rally to the standards of our life." 

Now since we have acquired the titles of 
America and Americans in this manner, and 
since we find the usage so well fixed that the 
king of Greece as well as the President of the 
United States can accept it without hesitation, 
and since we have proved in practice how sim- 
ple and easy of speech it is, we can willingly 
accept it for ourselves and raise no complaint 
when all the world styles us Americans as 
often as it pleases. 



The Development of America 1 5 

When one approaches discussion of the 
theme, Manhood in its American Type, it is 
well to realize the magnitude of the task. For 
any adequate representation of this American 
nation, or of any single phase of its phenome- 
nal greatness, would require far more time 
and space than is at present command. 

For this America of ours is great, grandly, 
magnificently, stupendously great. And in 
this statement one is not to be confined to the 
features of her physical and industrial pre- 
eminence, but is rather to consider the evi- 
dences of her social and moral grandeur. 
True enough it is that she has a vast domain, 
which stretches from our Canadian border to 
Mexico, and from Eastport in Maine to the 
Golden Gate of the Pacific; that she has her 
lofty mountain ranges, beside which the stop 
ied Alps dwindle to the proportions of way- 
side hills; that she incloses within her terri- 
tory vast rivers which are navigable inland to 
a greater mileage than the entire circumfer- 



1 6 Manhood in Its American Type 

ence of some of the haughty nations of Cen- 
tral Europe; that the value of her mineral 
deposits and the output of her fertile farms 
are a world wide wonder; that her systems of 
railway transportation and of electrical com- 
munication are the most complete and the best 
distributed of any on the face of the earth; 
that her foundries and manufactories of every 
class deliver a product that fairly staggers the 
imagination, and that she owns an astonish- 
ing number of thriving cities, of which there 
are no less than thirty, whose population sur- 
passes that of London, the capital city of 
England, in the day of Henry VIII. All these 
are striking tokens of wealth and power, but 
when all that is possible in respect to their 
value has been said, it remains that they are 
to be estimated merely as incidental and acces- 
sory beside that strong and indomitable Amer- 
ican spirit, which braved the perils of the sea, 
and faced the privations of a continent that 
was all unknown, and that plunged into the 



The Development of America 17 

loneliness of a trackless wilderness, and which 
in the first century and a half of its occupa- 
tion of the New World had won an estab- 
lished foothold all along our Atlantic coast; 
and which in its next century and a half had 
crossed the mountain barrier to the westward 
and subdued the gloomy forest solitudes, and 
wiped the Great American Desert of the 
Northwest from the map, and so taken com- 
plete possession of the land from ocean to 
ocean, and from the Rio Grande to Nome in 
northernmost Alaska. 

In this amazing multiplication of her 
population and in covering her vast domain 
in the North American Continent with com- 
fortable homes in the space of four genera- 
tions, America has wrought the miracle of 
miracles. We may well ask if we ourselves 
half realize the magnitude of the accomplish- 
ment. Frequently the makers of history in 
the stress of their anxious endeavor and in the 
intensity of their absorption in their immedi- 



1 8 Manhood in Its American Type 

ate duty lose the perspective of their own 
achievements. One does not need to spread- 
eagleize over this topic, and yet it would be to 
invite censure if one failed to present a few 
salient facts to assist in the comprehension of 
what America really is, which may serve also 
as a basis to conceive what she may yet be- 
come. 

It is to be remembered, when America 
severed her dependence upon Great Britain 
and instituted in this Western Hemisphere 
her hazardous experiment of founding a real 
republic in which the people themselves should 
be their own active rulers, that the newly born 
nation was so insignificant in the eyes of the 
world that England confidently expected His 
Majesty's trained regiments would sweep the 
ragged Provincial militia from their path like 
chaff before the tornado; while even the 
thoughtful on the Continent of Europe re- 
garded the aspirations of Adams, and Frank- 
lin, and Jefferson as a futile dream. A cur- 



The Development of America 19 

rent expression of the time respecting the in- 
security of the bond that united the American 
Colonies was to the effect that it was "a rope 
of sand." And there seems to have been 
some justification for ,this feeling, for the 
country was still in its infancy, and all of it 
that could be regarded as settled lay to the 
east of the Blue Ridge mountains. The tract 
for which our Revolutionary fathers con* 
tended, and which they sought to retain, was 
simply that narrow strip of coast line extend- 
ing from Maine to Georgia, and which rarely 
at any point reached over a hundred miles in- 
land. When the principal cities of the Colon- 
ial period are named this is instantly apparent. 
Those cities, beginning at the northeast, are 
Portland, Salem, Boston, Providence, New- 
port, New Haven, Hartford, New York, Al- 
bany, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Annapolis, 
Baltimore, Charleston, Mobile and Savannah. 
Washington and New Orleans are not in the 
list, for as yet there was no Washington; and 



20 Manhood in Its American Type 

as for New Orleans it was still a foreign pos- 
session belonging to Spain which owned it till 
it went to France in 1800. As one sees by 
noting their position every one of these prin- 
cipal Colonial towns was situated on the At- 
lantic seaboard, and either close to the ocean 
or, as with Albany, up some navigable stream, 
where it could be easily reached by sea going 
vessels. This was a necessity of the time, for 
transportation by water was the only kind 
that could be carried on to any considerable 
extent, and it was also by far the most eco- 
nomical. As yet good roads were conspicu- 
ous chiefly by their absence, and the region 
past the mountains had no lines of communi- 
cation other than the rivers, or the old Indian 
trails, and to follow either exposed the adven- 
turer to attack by hostile savages. The ros- 
ter of the battle fields of the Revolution tells 
much the same tale, for they all lie on that 
narrow strip of coast line. The principal en- 
gagements of that war were Lexington, Bunk- 



The Development of America 21 

er Hill, Bennington, Saratoga, Long Island, 
Trenton, Morristown, Germantown, the 
Cowpens and Yorktown. Not one of them 
was beyond the low lying terrain to the east 
of the Appalachians. 

It is to be noted further that the princi- 
pal American towns at the Revolutionary 
period were still in the stage of infancy, and 
not one of them was great enough to stir any 
sense of apprehension in the breast of the 
British statesmen, as forecasting any serious 
revolt against the crown. Albany at that time 
had a population of 9,000. Boston numbered 
15,000, Philadelphia 20,000, and New York, 
the metropolis, had less than 22,000. The 
great rush to the cities had not yet begun. The 
main body of Americans were still upon the 
farm, and scattered widely over all the area 
which had been opened up for settlement. 
Small holdings were yet the rule, for the new 
settlers for the most part were in no condition 
financially to purchase large tracts, or to culti- 



22 Manhood in Its American Type 

vate them. Many of the settlers were tenants 
of the few landed proprietors, or were among 
his employees. Consequently the chief indus- 
try of the Colonies was that of agriculture. 
For other pursuits we find some employed in 
lumbering, in ship-building, in deep sea fish- 
ing and sailing the seas to catch whales, or to 
carry on trade with the ports of England, 
France or the West Indies. Manufacturing 
at the date of the Revolution had only a fee- 
ble start, for the Mother Country by every 
art and device had sought to keep America 
as a producer of raw materials, with the dou- 
ble object of obtaining these raw materials at 
the least cost to herself, and to insure that 
these raw materials should be manufactured 
in her own mills, and then reshipped to the 
Colonies to be disposed of at good profit to 
herself. Nevertheless, in spite of all laws and 
of vexatious commercial restrictions, Ameri- 
ca had begun to do some manufacturing, 
though in a small way. Iron was smelted 



The Development of America 23 

from native ores both in New York and in 
Pennsylvania, and was wrought into tools 
and various practical forms. Hides were 
tanned, some glass was produced, rum was 
distilled in New England from molasses 
which was imported from the West Indies, 
and a few modest woolen mills were set up 
along convenient water courses, to be run by 
water power, and in which wool was carded, 
spun and woven into cloth. But when it came 
to articles of luxury, to fine furniture, fine 
crockery ware, fine jewelry and fine dress 
goods our fathers and mothers were depend- 
ent on the merchants of Europe. Even the 
brick which was used in building some of the 
more pretentious Colonial mansions was 
brought by ship from England or Holland. 
For some of the older families had become 
comparatively wealthy from the products of 
their extensive plantations, from whaling ven- 
tures, or from trade with China or the West 
Indies, and so were able to afford to erect 



24 Manhood in Its American Type 

homes that were stately, commodious and 
beautiful. 

But the main body of the people were less 
fortunate and were compelled to struggle for 
a livelihood. Generally all the way from 
Maine to Georgia they were housed in cabins 
built of logs, and they followed strictly what 
we have called the "simple life," but without 
thinking of giving it a name. These early 
homes, the kind that were common when Gage 
was Governor of Massachusetts, and Boston 
organized her famous tea party, were primi- 
tive enough. As stated, they were built of 
logs, and on a site which was overgrown with 
the virgin forest. After the settler had ob- 
tained his tract of land, from ten or twenty 
to one hundred and sixty acres, he began oper- 
ations by clearing a space for his buildings, 
and an acre or two besides, for raising a crop 
on which the family could subsist. The clear- 
ing of the land involved enormous labor. 
First of all came the felling of the trees and 



The Development of America 25 

the house building. Merely to bring down 
the towering monarchs of the forest which 
had been growing from time immemorial was 
a heart breaking task. The settler had none 
of our modern labor saving contrivances, and 
each tree had to be assailed by the all-around 
implement, the ax of the frontiersman. When 
a fair opening had been gained, logs were se- 
lected that were large enough, and yet not 
over large, and these were cut to the required 
lengths, and the rest of the timber, the heavy 
trunk logs and the branches were rolled away 
and piled in great windrows and set on fire. 
The blaze from such great fires flaming by 
night lighted the whole country round till the 
waste was consumed. 

The house-building itself was an interesting 
operation. For it the settler had the help of 
his nearest neighbors — any one was a neigh- 
bor who lived within the radius of one to five 
miles — and they helped each other, each ex- 
pecting like help in return. In the vernacular 



26 Manhood in Its American Type 

of the country this exchange of labor was 
"swapping jobs." 

Making use of the ax, they notched the 
logs at the ends so that they would hold firmly 
when put in place, and then piled them one 
above another cob-house fashion till the de- 
sired height was reached, space having been 
left at proper intervals for windows and 
doors. Usually the inner face of the logs 
was squared roughly with the ax, the outer 
face was left with the bark on, and this bark 
as the years passed dropped off piece by piece. 
The cracks between the logs were stopped 
with mortar, or with clay taken from the 
nearest water course. Such log houses were 
built with a single room, or sometimes with 
two rooms with a gallery between, this open 
on both sides, and the entire structure was 
protected by a single roof which extended 
over all. This roof was made by a frame of 
poles, which was covered with slabs or shin- 
gles split from pine or spruce logs, which 



The Development of America 27 

were well adapted for easy cleavage. At one 
end of the house a large fireplace was built of 
stones and mortar, and the chimney was car- 
ried up on the outside. Sometimes fireplace 
and chimney were made of logs and sticks 
which were lined with clay, but where flat 
stones that would resist the action of fire could 
be obtained they were naturally preferred to 
the backing of wood. If the home boasted 
several children, the older of these slept in 
the loft, which they reached by climbing a 
ladder, for there was no room in these con- 
tracted dwellings for a staircase. Of course 
there were more pretentious habitations erect- 
ed here and there on the frontier, for the man 
of substantial means who was beginning again 
in the wilderness might take along with him a 
large household, and numerous servants and 
artisans. Such a man would probably lay out 
an extensive demesne, consisting of his own 
residence, with the other buildings in close 
proximity. His own house might have ten 



28 Manhood in Its American Type 

or a dozen rooms and might even have a sec- 
ond story. And the logs of which it was built 
might be squared on the four sides, which 
would materially improve its appearance. And 
the houses for his retainers, and the various 
storehouses and barns he would in all likeli- 
hood distribute on three sides of a rectangle, 
all of them facing the central inclosure. The 
entire plant would then be inclosed by a stock- 
ade of heavy logs set upright side by side, and 
the stockade would be fortified by a solid 
blockhouse of logs at each corner, for protec- 
tion against hostile Indians. 

But it is with the humbler homes of the 
common people that we have to do. These 
of course were simple in plan, and all their 
appointments were on a modest scale. The 
furnishings of the frontier cabins were con- 
structed for service rather than beauty, and 
for the most part they were made on the 
premises by the head of the house himself. 
The kitchen, which was also the living room, 



The Development of America 29 

was heated by the open fire of wood, and the 
immense woodpile just outside the door was 
an object of interest to the boys of the estab- 
lishment, who were charged with the responsi- 
bility of having a never failing supply of fuel 
ready for the extra demand. 

The family cooking was largely done in the 
huge iron kettle, which hung by a crane in the 
great fireplace; but an excellent brand of 
bread was baked in a skillet, which was a 
heavy pan of iron, which stood on three tall, 
legs, and which had a long handle. The cov- 
er of the skillet was also of heavy iron, and it 
had a high rim all around it. When the 
dough was ready for baking, it was put into 
the skillet, which was set over a pile of glow- 
ing coals on the hearthstone. The pan like 
cover of the skillet was then put in place, and 
it was heaped up with red hot coals, and the 
whole affair was left to itself till the bread 
was baked. Such bread was of superior qual- 
ity and good enough for the queen's supper 



30 Manhood in Its American Type 

of bread and honey. For cooking a part- 
ridge, or a wild turkey, or a joint of venison, 
there was a Dutch oven, which was set before 
the fire, and one of the duties of a younger 
child was to turn the roast from time to time, 
and baste it from the drippings that fell into 
the pan below. 

But the baking for a large family, or for a 
special company, was managed in a capacious 
brick oven, which was stationed conveniently 
out of doors. A fire of wood was built on 
the oven itself and it was kept going till the 
brick interior was thoroughly and evenly 
heated. Then the fire was drawn, and the 
loaves of bread, or cake, or a dozen pies were 
inserted by help of a wooden shovel, which 
had a specially long handle. The cooking in 
an oven of this kind was accomplished very 
evenly and satisfactorily. 

In such rude homes the domestic fowl had 
free run of the dooryard, and were sometimes 
impudent enough to attempt to share the com- 



The Development of America 3 1 

fort of the kitchen. To guard against such 
intrusion the lady of the house was protected 
by having the outside door built in halves, 
which were hung separately, so that the lower 
half could be closed while the upper half was 
open to admit light and air. The horses and 
cattle were sheltered in a rustic stable, which 
was also built of logs. With its other advan- 
tages such a stable was always certain to be 
well ventilated. Where a stable was not yet 
available, the animals gathered in the lee of 
a grain stack, or under an open shed, which 
was built with the closed side toward the di- 
rection from which the severest storms were 
likely to come. 

The most of the family living came direct- 
ly from the soil, in the way of corn, wheat, 
barley, and potatoes and other vegetables; or 
indirectly through barter with the cross roads 
store, where the settler or his wife swapped 
eggs, grain or pearl-ash for tea, sugar and 
other commodities. The pearl-ash was ob- 



32 Manhood in Its American Type 

tained by leaching the ashes from the great 
ash piles, from the burnt timber. 

Food was plain but abundant after the land 
had been cleared and planted. All about the 
home was the open forest which swarmed with 
game; with deer, rabbits, partridges and pig- 
eons, and the rivers and ponds furnished fish 
for the catching. Corn meal mush served 
with milk or molasses constituted the staple 
breakfast, and often the same modest fare had 
to suffice for the family dinner and supper 
also. In the histories of George Washington, 
mention is frequently made of his enjoying on 
his visits to the Northern States his supper 
of "hasty pudding and milk." The "hasty pud- 
ding" was the high toned title of the more 
plebeian corn mush, which the many ate be- 
cause of Hobson's choice, that or nothing. 

The father of the household, helped by his 
boys, felled the trees, split logs for fencing 
the fields, burnt out or dug out the stumps, 
picked stone and laid the stone walls, plowed 



The Development of America 33 

the ground, prepared the soil, planted and 
harvested the crops; and in winter when til- 
lage was suspended there was plenty still to 
occupy mind and hand, for they "did the 
chores," worked at the woodpile, made the 
family shoes, which they wrought from the 
skin of the pet calf, which they had taken to 
the nearest tan yard to be turned into leather; 
and afterward they filled in what chinks were 
left in the day with carpentering, wagon 
building, and cabinet making to increase their 
stock of family furniture. 

And the mother of the family, with her 
daughters about her, prepared the meals, 
milked the cows, churned the butter, fed the 
chickens and collected the eggs, made the fam- 
ily soap, spun and wove the flax for the family 
linen, spun and wove the blankets which would 
wear twice as long as the more flimsy articles 
which this generation has to buy, and spun 
and wove the "linsey-woolsey," the cloth 
which they then cut and sewec} into substantial 



34 Manhood in Its American Type 

clothing, which was admirably adapted for 
common wear. 

All these interminable pursuits contributed 
toward making a busy life, and yet taken all in 
all it was a wholesome and happy life. Work 
and work again, with slight margin for recre- 
ation, was the common lot, and the most of 
the three millions of people — which was the 
population of the Colonies at the date of the 
Revolution — were happy to work, and glor- 
ied in their ability to do, and in their skill to 
turn their hands to anything that might be 
required. Industry and thrift were prevailing 
traits that were commended by all classes of 
the community, which despised in its soul and 
conduct that savored of idleness or profligacy. 
They tolerated no drones in that social hive. 
And as a direct consequence of their regulari- 
ty of life, and of their freedom from the vi- 
cious indulgences which were so rife in the 
Mother Country, those men and women of 
the Western World made a fair and even a 



The Development of America 35 

prosperous living, and developed strong and 
sturdy constitutions. A most striking tribute 
to the purity of their life appears in the fact 
that by the time of the Revolution the aver- 
age duration of life among the settlers of New 
England was double that of England or 
France. 

True enough, as compared with the es- 
tablished nations of Europe, these Colonists 
were weak and poor; weak and poor as re- 
gards articles of luxury, or as regards leisure 
for their enjoyment; but on the other hand 
they were rich and strong in their valiant de- 
termination to make their way in the world, 
and to achieve a future on whose successful 
outcome they had perfect confidence. 

It is quite another picture which spreads 
before our eyes today when we survey the 
American nation, and the territory which it 
has subdued and made its own. From the 
pitiful three millions of population as reck- 
oned by Adams and Patrick Henry, we have 



36 Manhood in Its American Type 

expanded to the vast proportions of a hun- 
dred million. We have leaped over the 
mountain barriers that hemmed them in on 
the westward, and we have spread abroad 
over the immense watershed of the Missis- 
sippi valley. We have traversed and occu- 
pied the plains and preempted the arable 
lands past the Rockies down to the ever beat- 
ing surges of the Pacific. Still not content 
with the lands that were arable naturally, we 
have instituted vast reclamation projects, and 
by detaining the waters at their sources, or by 
deflecting the flow of great rivers, we are 
transforming the alkali desert into a paradise. 
From being weak and despised we have be- 
come resourceful and mighty, so that every 
nation is eager to merit and retain our friend- 
ship. Poor as we once were, we are now 
rated as the wealthiest nation on the globe. 
Our present possessions are valued at two 
hundred billions of dollars, a sum so vast that 
we do not comprehend it. At this time we 



The Development of America 37 

are four times as rich as France ; eight times 
as rich as was Austria before she began burn- 
ing up her resources in this miserable war, and 
ten times as rich as Italy. And this wealth of 
ours is rolling in upon us like a flood, for it is 
piling up at the amazing rate of five billion 
dollars a year. And when we pause to con- 
sider this we are lost in amazement at the 
brevity of the time in which this wonderful 
growth has been consummated. It is today 
less than a century and a half, in fact only 
140 years, since the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. And accordingly we are to understand 
that all that this land has since become, with 
all its diversified industries, with all its breadth 
of cultivated lands, with all its thriving and 
influential cities, with all its culture, refine- 
ment and civilization, was bound up and con- 
tained in the lusty young nation that first saw 
the light in 1776, only 140 years ago: was 
hidden away in those six hundred thousand 
American homes of toil and privation, just as 



38 Manhood in Its American Type 

the germ is hidden away in the acorn; small 
and apparently insignificant, but which in due 
time expands to become the towering king of 
the forest. 

In the face of this brief statement of this 
miracle of American growth and power it is 
pertinent to inquire into its causes; into the 
reasons which will explain how it was possible 
for it all to come to pass ; how it happens that 
such expansion has come to America particular- 
ly, and not to some one of the more prominent 
nations of Europe, which were great before 
America was heard of. Why was it that such 
growth was not vouchsafed to Mexico or to 
Peru, both of which lie in the same Western 
World, and both of which enjoy many of the 
natural resources to which so many writers of 
note ascribe the chief credit for the develop- 
ment of American greatness? Mexico was 
conquered by Hernando Cortez in 1520, a 
full hundred years before the landing of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth, and Peru was under 



The Development of America 39 

the heel of Pizarro only fifteen years after the 
fall of Mexico. Both of these lands at the 
time of their conquest were overflowing with 
riches. Both owned productive mines of gold 
and silver, to say nothing of the immense 
treasures wrested from Montezuma, and from 
the temples and palaces of the Incas. Mexi- 
co and Peru both have fertile lands, and a 
diversified climate, and are as capable of pro- 
ducing breadstuffs and other products in al- 
most fabulous profusion as any of our Ameri- 
can commonwealths. And yet how striking 
the difference! We survey these two coun- 
tries today, with all their advantage of a cen- 
tury of time over the Colony of Plymouth; 
but for all that, in almost every line of real 
development, they are out of sight behind 
America. Who will expound the secret of 
America's surprising gain and advancement 
over Mexico and Peru ? Evidently America's 
prosperity cannnot be attributed merely to the 
felicities of her climate, nor to the extent of 



40 Manhood in Its American Type 

her forests, nor to the product of her mines, 
in all of which she is easily paralleled by Mex- 
ico and Peru. Somewhere there has been a 
powerful influence in her favor, and the wise 
will look for the secret of America's success 
in the superior texture of the American char- 
acter, and in the peculiar traits in their rare 
combination, which give force and virility 
and the right inclination to our American 
manhood. It is manhood after all, the inher- 
ent nobility of the soul, and not extraneous 
circumstances and conditions, which count in 
the great struggle. Spurious manhood en- 
counters trials and succumbs before them. 
Real manhood meets the same obstacles, tram- 
ples them under foot, and gains added cour- 
age and power by the very struggle and the 
joy of conquest. 



II 

MOULDING THE AMERICAN TYPE 



MOULDING THE AMERICAN TYPE 

OWING to many potent influences 
prevailing in this fair land of ours, 
which combined together from the 
day of its earliest settlement to 
produce the ultimate result, it would seem as 
if America had been providentially adapted 
to create and foster a new and noble type of 
manhood. 

A prominent characteristic of our first col- 
onists, and particularly of those who made 
their settlement in New England, is that they 
were Englishmen, and of that stripe of Eng- 
lishmen in whom determination of soul, linked 
with an indomitable spirit of adventure was a 
second nature. They had braved persecution 
in England, owing to their resolve to worship 
God according to the dictates of conscience, 
and when the persecution became unendurable 
they fled from the home of their birth to the 

43 



44 Manhood in Its American Type 

freer atmosphere of Holland. And when 
the chance offered to establish their own col- 
ony in a new land across the sea, where their 
children could be trained in the use of their 
own language, and where they might erect a 
new England, which would cherish the best of 
their old life, with freedom from its hamper- 
ing restrictions, they gladly sailed away to the 
west, although they knew well that they were 
facing every possible privation and misfor- 
tune. It was a picked company, thinned out 
by tribulation, so that it included only those 
choice souls who knew no fear, and whom no 
trials however great they might be could dis- 
concert or discourage. Such men as those of 
the Mayflower, Carver and Standish and 
Bradford, and the rest, were a fitting ancestry 
from whose loins was to spring a dauntless 
and a magnanimous posterity. 

An influence which tended to confirm the 
direction of the new colony toward a noble 
development is found in America's isolation 



Moulding the American Type 45 

from the Old World, and her consequent 
emancipation immediately and continuously 
from the fetters, which through the ages had 
held the masses of the people abroad in social 
and political servitude. The remnants of 
feudalism that lingered among all the nations 
of Europe, and which affected every class of 
the population, from the palace of the nobility 
to the cot of the serf, produced a degree of 
abasement which it is difficult for the freeman 
to realize, though now we perceive how some 
of those same feudal conditions holding over 
in Central Europe to this very day have shown 
themselves responsible for launching this la- 
mentable war. At the close of the seventeenth 
century all over Europe the monarch ruled his 
people by right divine, and each rank of his 
nobility ruled the rest below themselves, each 
taking to himself something of the royal pre- 
rogative. The ruling class held a monopoly 
of thinking, and denied this right to the peo- 
ple, who were made to bear the burdens, while 



46 Manhood in Its American Type 

their betters were reveling in ease and luxury. 
The nobles constituted a separate and dis- 
tinct class, into which the tradesman or the 
peasant might not penetrate by marriage or 
otherwise. The noble was born to command, 
and the common man was born to submit, and 
not to attempt to rise above the rank in which 
he had been placed by the divine mandate. 
The Revolution in France brought about 
some amelioration of conditions for French- 
men, and the fall of the Stuarts in England re- 
duced in some degree the arrogance of the 
British aristocracy, and yet for all that 
enough of the old traditions lingered on, en- 
trenched in traditions of the courts and in 
daily custom, and thus was binding the hands 
of the man of low degree and hampering his 
ambition. Altogether the social condition of 
Europe operated in a manner to rob the man 
at the foot of the ladder of the power to think 
and plan for himself, and deprived him even 
of the inclination to initiate activities. 



Moulding the American Type 47 

But here in America the old feudalism was 
given no foothold from the outset. The wide 
stretches of the Atlantic, with its slow going 
sailing vessels, cut off the New World from 
the mischievous practices and ideas that ruled 
in society over the waters. To make the voy- 
age from Portsmouth to Plymouth or Boston 
and back to England consumed from two to 
three months at the least. That long journey 
across the ocean was a protection to Ameri- 
can liberties which the old ways could not re- 
move. And so the force of the old social re- 
strictions was lost, and in this new land there 
grew up a new style of living, in which all fac- 
titious distinctions of birth and rank were dis- 
carded, and each man met his neighbor on the 
common plane of equal right and privilege. 
England might still commission her Royal 
Governors for the Colonies and send them 
here, backed with the force of the courts and 
the army, but in their several towns the people 
legislated respecting their local affairs in open 



48 Manhood in Its American Type 

town meeting, elected their local officers by 
popular vote, and attended to their local con- 
cerns without let or hindrance from anybody. 
And the same towns elected their deputies to 
represent them in the Colonial assemblies. 
These assemblies levied taxes, which they 
presently collected. They claimed for them- 
selves the same right, after the fashion of 
the English Commons, to originate tax bills, 
which claim of course involved the cognate 
right to refuse to vote an obnoxious impost. 
The trouble which arose over the taxing of 
tea was not so much the amount of the tax, 
which was comparatively trivial ; but the fact 
that it was forced upon them in violation of 
their right of free debate and free decision. 
"Taxation without representation," was to 
them an infringement upon their liberties, 
which no mandate of the crown, and no ca- 
joleries of British statesmen could compel 
them to endorse. 

Another influence which reacted upon the 



Moulding the American Type 49 



development of American manhood was the 
American idea of freedom respecting relig- 
ious debate. The Old World knew little of 
liberty in religious opinion. Holland had 
been free in thought from the time she cast 
off the yoke of Spain and accepted William of 
Orange as Stadtholder, but England had not 
tolerated any differences from her worship as 
by law established, and as directed by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury. Now in theory 
the church of the Pilgrims upheld perfect 
freedom of conscience, for it was to maintain 
that principle that they had sailed their frail 
bark across the Atlantic. It must be admitted 
however that some of the leading divines, and 
some of the ruling elders, of Boston and Sa- 
lem were disposed to lord it over God's heri- 
tage with an iron hand. The sending of Rog- 
er Williams forth into the forest and swamps 
in the dead of winter is evidence of their lack 
of toleration when it came to the concrete ap- 
plication. Nevertheless, because their theory 



50 Manhood in Its American Type 

of religious toleration was sound, even if their 
practice was defective, there was much discus- 
sion upon religious topics, and in fact far 
more than was possible at the same period in 
England. And when once men get it into 
their consciousness that there should be free- 
dom in religious thought, and that it is the 
right of the individual soul to express its re- 
ligious conviction, there is but a short step 
to making the like claim as to freedom of dis- 
cussion in political concerns. And so through- 
out the Colonies the spirit of soul liberty and 
liberty of mind became fixed in the hearts of 
the people, and an atmosphere was produced 
in which the souls of men could breathe freely 
and develop in a normal way. 

Still another influence which tended power- 
fully toward the development of American 
manhood was what may be termed the New 
England instinct for popular education. The 
Pilgrims, and the Puritans who followed them 
were penetrated by a powerful conviction that 



Moulding the American Type 5 1 

the people were better qualified for self-gov- 
ernment when trained and cultured, than when 
they were immersed in the darkness of ignor- 
ance. And accordingly they planned for the 
education of their own children, and of all 
the children in the community. As early as 
1636, only sixteen years after the landing at 
Plymouth, Massachusetts, voted a levy of 
£400, for the foundation of a University at 
Cambridge, which afterward became Har- 
vard College. The sacrifice which this en- 
tailed can only be understood when we remem- 
ber that this sum was equal to the annual levy 
on the entire Colony of Masachusetts at that 
date. In 1642 the General Court empowered 
the selectmen of every town to see that the 
children could read, and understand the prin- 
ciples of religion, and the principal statutes of 
the Colony, and that they be set to some use- 
ful work. In 1647 tne same authority re- 
quired every town of fifty householders to es- 
tablish a school, the master of which was to 



52 Manhood in Its American Type 

be paid by the parents, or by public taxation, 
as the town committee might decide, and every 
town of one hundred householders to estab- 
lish a grammar school for preparing pupils 
for the University at Cambridge. Provisions 
for popular education such as these, which 
we recognize as being almost two centuries in 
advance of their era, proclaim the wisdom and 
farsighted judgment of these New England 
statesmen. 

Coupled with the other factors which have 
been mentioned, which united in framing the 
American character, and possibly to be esti- 
mated as the most effective of them all, may 
be mentioned the educative force of adversity, 
and the struggle to overcome the disadvan- 
tages of their situation. In this new land 
every settler who established his home in a 
new region was at once thrown upon his own 
resources, and every day disclosed some new 
problem which called for all the ingenuity 
which he possessed. It has already been seen 



Moulding the American Type 53 

how at the start he had to hew out for him- 
self standing room in the forest, and we may 
well imagine the urgency of the contest, when 
he had to wring from nature her products to 
meet his needs in the way of shelter, food and 
clothing, the bare necessities of life. But 
there was still the further struggle with the 
relentless aborigines, whose war-whoop might 
ring in his ears at any moment by night or 
day. Whatever might have been his former 
mode of life, a teacher, a lawyer, or squire of 
the manor, in this New World he had to wield 
the ax, the hoe and the mattock; he was 
forced to be his own stone mason, his own 
shoemaker, and sometimes as a blacksmith he 
had to shoe his horse or oxen. Beyond that 
he had to be his own sentinel and soldier. 
When he was plowing his field his trusty mus- 
ket must lie close at hand, loaded and primed 
for instant action, and when he assembled his 
household on the Sabbath Day to walk to the 
House of God, it was with his Bible under 



54 Manhood in Its American Type 

his arm and his gun on his shoulder. Every 
day brought some new demand for which new 
expedients must be devised, and some novel 
emergency in which it was imperative for him 
to act with instant and competent judgment. 
All this was a training school for manhood, 
one in which constant practice was offered in 
efficiency, and which paid its own reward at 
sight. Some of those fathers of ours, when 
the Colonies had become well established, en- 
joyed the privilege of attending college at 
Yale, or Harvard, or Amherst ; but the great- 
er number were graduated from the Univer- 
sity of Hard Knocks, and it is to be believed 
when they had taken their extended courses 
in its several departments that they acquired a 
remarkably diversified skill of hand and mind. 
The boys of that age were students of practi- 
cal agriculture, and had a smattering of half 
a dozen trades, which they had learned at 
home with their father as head of the depart- 
ment. And in a sense it was a competitive ex- 



Moulding the American Type 55 

ercise, for the lad who could best handle the 
ax or the plane, or turn out a pound of finished 
horseshoe nails in the shortest time was the 
hero of the neighborhood. And so those 
young fellows passed up their subjects in these 
courses with a thoroughness which no subse- 
quent experiences could efface. 

And the girls under the eye of their moth- 
ers had instruction both theoretical and prac- 
tical in Domestic Arts. They learned to brew 
and to bake, to spin, to sew, to patch and quilt 
bed coverlets, and to do skilfully the thou- 
sand and one duties, which fitted them to man- 
age their own households, when the right 
young man extended the marital invitation. 

At the outbreak of the war for Independ- 
ence, this process of sharpening the wits of 
Americans had been in progress a century and 
a half. But the Revolution had a disciplinary 
effect of its own, for it welded the hearts of 
the people together, it taught them still deeper 
lessons of self-control and self-reliance, and 



56 Manhood in Its American Type 

also that extremely important lesson of self- 
sacrifice for their native land. 

And in the years that followed the Revolu- 
tion, as the tide of immigration flowed 
through the eastern gateways of the Republic, 
and spread out over the prairies and moun- 
tains of the west, the same educational pro- 
cesses were continued and repeated, until the 
whole nation stood forth as an illustrious ex- 
ample of a cultural experiment, the most ex- 
tensive and the most successful of any in the 
world that has occurred from the dawn of 
history to the present hour. 

Under conditions such as have been de- 
scribed America begat a new strain of man- 
hood, Caucasian of course, for the half-breeds 
are so few that they are to be neglected in the 
total computation ; composite, with blood cur- 
rents derived from English, Scotch, Irish, 
Dutch, German, French and other ancestry 
and combining strangely enough the higher 
and nobler traits of all these diverse national- 



Moulding the American Type 57 

ities. 

This new type of manhood, evolved after 
this manner, is distinctly and distinctively 
American. It differs in a noticeable degree 
from the numerous types which Europe fur- 
nishes us so familiarly. We have but to men- 
tion these to have them stand out conspicuous- 
ly in our mental conception. 

The Swedes and Norwegians of the Scan- 
dinavian peninsula are tall and solid in frame, 
blond in complexion, and with tawny hair and 
often with eyes of gray or blue. 

The Scot is large of frame, and with the 
framework well in evidence ; of a rugged and 
serious cast of countenance, and with a dis- 
position that takes firm hold of an opinion or 
of a friend. 

The Russian is long and heavy, patient as 
an ox, moderate in movement, and stolid in 
argument or action. 

The Latin races of Southern Europe are 
semi-tropical in temperament, smaller in stat- 



58 Manhood in Its American Type 

ure than the races that have been mentioned; 
lithe, active, and prone to talk with eyes, 
hands and shoulders almost as much as with 
the tongue. 

When it comes to the more prominent na- 
tions, the caricaturists have worked out a set 
of characteristic national traits, which are 
somewhat exaggerated, but which in the main 
seem to fit sufficiently to merit general accept- 
ance. 

Thus they will picture Hans, the German, 
with a solid avoirdupois, a countenance that 
exhibits straightforward determination, and a 
general mien that consorts well with music, 
sausages and pretzels and a bier-garten. 

They picture Johnny Crapaud, the French- 
man, as medium in height, slim in figure, ac- 
tive in movement, with an alert expression in 
his eye, and a dapper taste in attire that 
borders on the fantastic. 

But their treatment of John Bull, the Eng- 
lishman, sets him forth as the most stalwart 



Moulding the American Type 59 



of all; broad in the beam like one of his own 
ale casks, beefy and heavy, and with a set 
shutting of his jaws, like the snap of a bull 
dog, which seems to announce that he will 
have every right that is his, or he will know 
the reason why. 

Now merely in his physical conformation 
the American cannot be mistaken for any of 
the types so far described. Individual Amer- 
icans here and there may resemble types from 
other lands, or attempt to resemble them. But 
our real Americans are very easily distin- 
guished by their figure and their bearing. You 
may start half a dozen Americans abroad to 
make the grand tour, and they will be instant- 
ly taken for Americans, whether it be in 
Paris or Constantinople. 

There is now hardly any question among us 
as to who was the greatest of all Americans, 
the noblest soul, the most representative of 
what Americans are that our soil has pro- 
duced. Touching this Americans are all of 



60 Manhood in Its American Type 

one mind, and that will be to say that that 
great soul was Abraham Lincoln. He it is 
who has embodied the elemental shrewdness, 
the power, the adaptability, the courage, the 
rigid patriotism and the truthfulness of the 
American character. And the caricaturists 
have well hit off this American type, and it is 
to be remembered that they had created the 
representation before Abraham Lincoln came 
upon the scene, in their portraiture of our Un- 
cle Samuel. They depict him as tall, slab- 
sided, angular, with features well accentuated, 
a piercing eye, and a general expression of 
confidence, which seems to say to all beholders 
that he was not born yesterday, that he has 
cut his eye teeth, and that he stands ready to 
extract the eyeteeth of all creation and to do 
the trick so handily that they wont catch on 
to what he is up to. 

And this American type prevails with slight 
modifications throughout the nation. Every- 
where we are one people in all prominent 



Moulding the American Type 61 

traits, in bodily traits, and in mental and mor- 
al traits. 

If for a season a half century back we had 
some little family differences, we cleaned 
them up at the time once for all, and even the 
remembrance of them has been almost oblit- 
erated by the many problems since that we 
have had to work out together, and by the 
many interests which we now hold in com- 
mon. 

That we possess a common language is a 
fact so simple and so natural to us that we 
forget that as the world goes it is phenomenal. 
Nowhere else is the benefit of an absolutely 
common speech enjoyed to a similar extent. 
Italy, France and Germany, all have their 
regional dialects, which in some cases are so 
diverse as to constitute almost separate 
tongues. In England an Essex man of the 
soil can hardly conduct a sustained conversa- 
tion with a common man from Devon or 
Northumberland. But here in America, with 



62 Manhood in Its American Type 

all our hundred millions of population, we 
can travel the length and breadth of the land, 
and omitting the settlements in which the 
newly arrived immigrants congregate, our one 
language will give one perfect understanding 
everywhere. 

Once the Yankee was esteemed as the pecu- 
liar product of New England, but presently 
New York claimed the right to whistle Yan- 
kee Doodle, and then Ohio, and then all the 
country down to a certain famous line that 
cut to the westward along the southern border 
of Pennsylvania. But later we had some mat- 
ters to discuss with Cuba, and we sent a debat- 
ing team over there, and in the controversy 
that ensued the men from Maine stood shoul- 
der to shoulder with the men from Alabama ; 
and since that occasion we all claim to be 
Yankees, clean down to the Rio Grande, not 
omitting Florida or Texas. All the way we 
stand before the world with a common lan- 
guage, with common aspirations and ideals; 



Moulding the American Type 63 

one nation, forever united, under one flag 
which we all venerate and love; Americans 
all of us, from sea to sea, and from the gelid 
waters of the Great Lakes to the tropical flow 
of the Gulf of Mexico. 

An important concern which is associated 
with the thought of manhood in its American 
type, and in addition to the tenacity with 
which the type persists, is that we are regular- 
ly remoulding the descendants of other races 
into conformity with our type. This is a very 
remarkable point in ethnology, this modeling 
and remodeling of racial types and character- 
istics. 

We are a clearly outstanding example of 
such transformation in the case of our adopted 
citizens of German descent. A German im- 
migrant brings his bride to this country, and 
after they have passed the inspection at Ellis 
island, they push on to make their home some- 
where between the Atlantic and the Rocky 
Mountains. He is German to the core, and 



64 Manhood in Its American Type 

his Gretchen is also. He may set up his house- 
keeping in some one of our great cities, in 
close touch with the German colony, where 
he may keep on talking German in the home 
and also among his business associates. He 
may have all his dealings with Germans and 
so remain German to the end of the chapter. 
But his children will be less German than he, 
and his grandchildren still less. By the third 
generation the distinctively German type will 
have become modified, and even the features 
of this set of his offspring will have altered 
from the extreme German cast and have as- 
similated much of the American type. And 
this will occur even if there has been no in- 
termarriage with the strain that hails from 
Plymouth Rock. Attribute this alteration in 
physical characteristics to whatever factor you 
may please, to climatic conditions, to the novel 
environment of the New World, to the sub- 
tle influence attending the intercourse with 
American children on the playground and in 



Moulding the American Type 65 

the class room, or to anything else that the ac- 
tive imagination can conceive; all the same 
the change occurs, a change in facial expres- 
sion, a change in the conformation of the 
head, and even a change in the shape of the 
mouth and of the organs of speech. 

Possibly we Americans do not make allow- 
ance for the difficulty to the out and out Ger- 
man, who has never tried any language but his 
own, to acquire some of the sounds which we 
utter with the ease of established usage. Our 
vocal organs are conformed to make these 
sounds, and his are conformed to make sounds 
which we find it difficult to utter. Some years 
back I labored diligently with a German 
friend in New York city several times by 
the half hour in the attempt to have him 
speak our diphthong "th" in its thin sound, 
but always in vain. I showed him how to place 
the tip of his tongue between his teeth and to 
say, "th," "th," "th"; thing," "thought,"' 
"thistle"; but though he struggled valiantly, 



66 Manhood in Its American Type 

the very best he could achieve was to say, 
"ding," "dthought," "dthistle." And a mis- 
erable mess he made of it when he informed 
me of the ages of himself and wife, which 
happened to be thirty-two and thirty; for he 
announced without so much as cracking a 
smile that she was "dirty" and he was "dirty- 
two." But his two charming granddaughters 
had no such linguistic tribulations. There 
was no impediment in their speech. They had 
taken on the American type in appearance, in 
address, and in vocal expression they were 
like ourselves. Were one to meet them on the 
Avenue or in the Park he would never have 
imagined from any peculiarity of feature, or 
from any word dropped in the course of the 
conversation that they were aught else than 
to the manner born. 

Sometimes it must be admitted that our 
adopted citizens will betray their origin by 
their names, when there is nothing else appar- 
ent which would give them away. Only last 



Moulding the American Type 67 

Spring I experienced quite a surprise. A gen- 
tleman came into my office on business for 
which he had been commissioned by a promi- 
nent firm in New York. When the matter 
was concluded we had leisure for a pleasant 
chat. He had been graduated from a leading 
University, from Cornell in fact, and so we 
were on common ground as college men ; and 
besides he had met several of my particular 
friends as he traveled about the state, which 
placed us on quite familiar terms. Up to the 
moment of his going away he had borne him- 
self as an American, and his sympathies were 
dovetailed closely with my own. So when 
he passed me his card, and I read the inscrip- 
tion, "Gustav Finklestein," one might almost 
have pushed me over with a feather. Of 
course it was not " Finklestein" exactly, for it 
would not be fair to identify him too exactly, 
but it had a twang that would match well with 
that. And then it all came out. His father 
came over here from Prussia. He was born 



68 Manhood in Its American Type 

here, had been trained in the public schools, 
had taken his university course, and was trans- 
formed into an American in everything but 
the name, 

But names are not always to be trusted at 
their face value, for I have known of Greeks, 
of Germans, or Hungarians to become good 
Americans by the simple process of applying 
to the courts and obtaining from the judge a 
decree that enabled them to dispense with the 
Constanopulos, or the Finklestein, or the Ka- 
zinczy, and they have come forth from the 
seat of justice to be known henceforth as 
plain John Smith, or George Brown, or John 
Robinson. For this reason names are not 
certainly to be depended on. 

And some of our Italian immigrants are 
melting into the American type very gracious- 
ly, and with a little shrewd help on our part 
they would assimilate more easily and to mu- 
tual advantage. 

Not long since I happened to be in a well 



Moulding the American Type 69 

known city of Connecticut, and finding that I 
had lost a button I stepped into a tailor shop 
to have it replaced. The shop opened directly 
upon the street, and the proprietor, who was 
a son of Italy had his living apartments be- 
hind the shop. While waiting for him to 
complete the task in which he was engaged, 
we began to chat about his old home, his rea- 
sons for leaving it, and the better chances of- 
fered him in this land, over what he had in 
the old country. While we were thus occu- 
pied his little son, a lad of six years or so, 
came in attired in his Sunday best. I gave at- 
tention to the little chap, who was evidently 
the pride of his father's heart. He was just 
home from practicing his "piece" which he 
was to recite at the concert to be given the 
next Sunday night at the Congregational 
Church. I asked him to recite it for me, and 
when he nodded assent I lifted him to the ta- 
ble, and he went through his four or five stan- 
zas without a break. The family was Roman 



70 Manhood in Its American Type 

Catholic. But that boy was being trained in a 
Protestant Sunday School, and there he had 
learned to say those verses about the Ameri- 
can flag, which he was to wave on the plat- 
form as an American boy. And the father 
was delighted to have him trained in that Sun- 
day School and to see him growing up as an 
American boy; one more American of the 
Americans. 

Observing how rapidly and completely such 
transformations can occur, I am wondering if 
it is not a part of the great role for which Di- 
vine providence has created this fair land, to 
have it engaged in just such an enterprise as 
this; to provide here a refuge and a home in 
which the oppressed and neglected of other 
lands may meet a welcome, and where they 
and their offspring along with ours may labor 
and develop powers now dormant, but which 
may become brilliant and influential for the 
improvement of our own institutions, and the 
uplift of mankind. 



Ill 

AMERICAN TRAITS AND 
CHARACTERISTICS 



AMERICAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS 

WHEN one approaches a review 
of the characteristic traits of the 
American man, it is not neces- 
sary to urge that he holds them 
in exclusive possession, for possibly every one 
of these traits may be found among the best 
men of any one of the leading nationalities of 
the time. Nobility of spirit, the essence of 
true gentility, cannot be restricted to any 
clime, or to any age. There were cultivated 
gentlemen in ancient Rome, and in Athens, 
and such are to be met in every modern capi- 
tal. But what may be claimed and supported 
without successful contradiction is, that the 
happy combination of all these magnanimous 
traits, which runs throughout the mass of the 
people, is to be found in the average Ameri- 
can, and that in him their expression rises to 
the most eminent degree. 

A striking characteristic of the American, 

73 



74 Manhood in Its American Type 

and one which is most likely to be noticed by 
a stranger, is that he is wide awake and alert 
to every circumstance, wherever he happens to 
be, and whatever is his occupation. "Catch a 
weasel asleep," is a familiar colloquialism 
which has force in respect to the habitual vig- 
ilance of our American. Turn attention up- 
on one of our compatriots at any time, and 
when what is going on may seem to be none 
of his concern, and though he may look as if 
his whole mind were focussed on his own af- 
fairs, nevertheless if the business be traced to 
its conclusion it will appear that he has seen 
measured it all through from A. to Z. In 
the pursuit of his own interests he can be gaz- 
ing straight ahead, and yet be capable of 
watching all the time out of the tail of his 
eye for anything that may affect himself or 
his future. Something of the success of the 
American business man in competition with 
builders and contractors of other lands is to 
be credited to his everlasting watchfulness, 



American Traits and Characteristics 75 

which insures him against being taken at a dis- 
advantage. In the commercial struggle, even 
when some plan of his miscarries, his rivals 
will be wise not to count him as down and 
out prematurely, for in all likelihood he has 
several plans up his sleeve, which will be pro- 
duced in due season. As he scans the array 
of opportunities before him, he is never con- 
tent with making provision for the obvious 
— anyone can do that — but he cultivates the 
habit of weighing all possible chances and 
mischances, and of seeing to it that he is ready 
for any event, no matter how improbable for 
the moment its occurrence may seem. 

How is the superior alertness of the Amer- 
ican to be accounted for ? It is a phenomenon 
of long standing, and as a trait it is widely 
distributed, so widely indeed as to warrant the 
conclusion that it is due to some powerful in- 
fluence in our early history. 

Now the biologists are accustomed to at- 
tribute changes and modifications in the struc- 



76 Manhood in Its American Type 

ture of plants and animals to the effects of 
heredity. According to them we inherit domi- 
nant traits and tendencies from our parents, 
and any special trait or tendency that environ- 
ment or use has particularly accentuated in 
the parents goes over to the offspring with 
cumulative force. 

It is after this fashion that they account for 
the deterioration of the appendix vermifor- 
mis, that relic of a vast antiquity, of which we 
hear so much lately in connection with hospi- 
tals and operations. The biologists advise us 
that this despicable little mischief maker, in 
the long, long ago, when our remote ancestors 
were less sophisticated than we, was very use- 
ful and was a much more prominent organ; 
but when man altered his diet, and adopted 
food of a more concentrated form, the organ 
which is now only an appendix became less 
and less ; and the less it was used the more it 
shriveled, till it dwindled down to its present 
diminutive and despised proportions. 



American Traits and Characteristics 77 

And in similar manner that class of biolo- 
gists who affirm that the human race has the 
monkey for its first cousin, contend that man 
once had a tail like his cousin, but that he lost 
it through the course of the ages by the slow 
process of wearing it away as he came to 
adopt a sitting posture. Personally, however, 
I am not so cock sure about all this, for what 
seems to me a fairly sound reason according 
to the principles of the biologists themselves. 
For we happen to know one creature that 
makes a practice of sitting on his tail — the 
kangaroo — and we know that the more that 
he uses it as a substitute for a camp-stool, not 
only is it not worn away, but quite to the con- 
trary it becomes more reliable and efficient, 
and is in fact his chief means of support. In- 
deed whenever Mr. Kangaroo adopts the sit- 
ting posture we have to cease speaking of him 
as sitting down, for in every such instance that 
has come to my observation he was certainly 
sitting up, and a long way up at that. 



78 Manhood in Its American Type 

And I must confess a further disagreement 
with this section of the biologists, because so 
far as I am able to perceive, it would have 
been far simpler for the monkey to have 
grown his own tail, than for humanity to have 
lost such an anatomical continuation, suppos- 
ing that originally it was provided therewith. 
For on the theory that use leads to develop- 
ment, it would seem that the creature that 
owned a tail and employed it in the customary 
way, would have had it extended and elon- 
gated, rather than abbreviated or obliterated. 
For when such a creature in his ancestral 
wilds flopped that convenient substitute for 
a hand over a contiguous branch, and com- 
placently took his swing head downward after 
the manner of his kind, it is evident that every 
such gymnastic exercise, according to recog- 
nized evolutionary principles, would impel re- 
tention and development of the tail. 

And yet at this point we are confronted 
with another difficulty, which apparently 



American Traits and Characteristics 79 

thrusts an insurmountable stumbling-block in 
the way of conceiving the monkey to be man's 
degenerate relative, and of his ever having 
gotten a caudal appendage at all, if the hypo- 
thesis be assumed that he began existence in 
lack of one. For the biologist's theory rests 
upon the postulate that the tail grows and de- 
velops from the act of throwing it over a 
limb, and extending it by the weight of the 
animal thus held in suspense. But it may be 
inquired how that primitive monkey, who be- 
gan his existence without a tail was able to get 
a tail over the limb on that crucial occasion: 
and further if he had none to get over the first 
time, where did he succeed in acquiring one to 
get it over at any time? The subject appar- 
ently is very obscure and mysterious, and per- 
haps it had better be left to the biologists to 
solve it at their convenience. 

But as to the main principle of traits and 
tendencies in the ancestor becoming fixed by 
use, so that they are passed over and confirmed 



80 Manhood in Its American Type 

in his posterity, it may be regarded as sound 
and true, and we may continue to employ it as 
a working hypothesis. And as such it may be 
applied directly as accounting for the trait of 
alertness in the American man. Our fathers 
as is well known to everyone were in constant 
exposure to privations and perils. Some of 
them were mariners, fishermen coasting off 
the banks of Newfoundland, or whalers sail- 
ing around Cape Horn and chasing the mon- 
sters of the deep over the vast Pacific Ocean. 
In such pursuits they were beset by angry bil- 
lows, and were often the sport of terrible 
tempests, when their frail barks were tossed 
like chips in the waste of waters. For their 
very lives it was imperative for them to know 
that every plank of their vessel was sound and 
fast, that every seam was pitched and caulked 
so as to be able to shut out the sea, no matter 
how much the ship might toss and strain, and 
that every line in the running rigging was free 
from bight or snarl, so as never to catch in a 



American Traits and Characteristics 81 

block when the ship was going about, or when 
it was smitten by a sudden squall. 

Those of our forefathers who dwelt on the 
land had to watch the skies for signs that fore- 
told a change of weather, and to guard their 
growing crops from every stray beast that 
might trample or devour them ; and when they 
were passing through the forest, following 
along the old Indian trails, they had to see to 
it that no withered branch overhead should 
fall and crush them to the earth; and more 
than all they had to be vigilant against the 
leap of the prowling wolf, or of the stealthy 
lynx, and against the still more crafty ap- 
proach of the merciless savage. Their isola- 
tion in the wilderness forced them to train 
every sense to the acutest strain, for it was 
only their readiness to meet and cope with 
every danger, from any and every quarter, 
which could insure their own safety and the 
lives of all that they held dear. 

And even after the wilderness had been 



82 Manhood in Its American Type 

subdued in some measure, and the settler or 
farmer had taken a house in town in order 
to take up the occupation of trader or banker, 
he still had need to cultivate the same trait of 
constant vigilance in the care and extension of 
his business relations; and so the cultivation 
of alertness went on from generation. 

As a result our American is quick to see all 
sides of any situation; quick to reach a con- 
clusion, which will be no less prudent because 
he has not been fumbling for weeks over a 
decision that he was able to make in three min- 
utes; and quick to act, when it is time to act. 
In the early day the frontiersman won out 
against the Indian, because he could adopt and 
improve on the red man's strategy; and be- 
cause he could shoot and shoot straight, while 
the Indian was getting ready to shoot. And 
within our own day numberless instances are 
on record of officers of the law in the great 
west, who have been assailed by desperadoes 
and have come off victors, because they could 



American Traits and Characteristics 83 

"pull a gun" quicker than the eye could fol- 
low, and pull the trigger with the weapon at 
the waist, or even in a coat pocket, firing 
through the garment, and apparently without 
taking aim and yet not missing their quarry. 

The great American game of baseball owes 
its popularity to its requirement of immediate 
judgment and instant action. In the complex 
possibilities which it offers every man in the 
game must be as they say "on his tip toes," 
and he wins, whose mind and hand unite on 
the instant to do the right thing. 

If in their games American boys are active, 
they are no less so in their studies. Of course 
there are stupid fellows everywhere, who 
hardly know enough to go in when it rains; 
but the average American boy is far from stu- 
pid, and he can work up a task in history or 
philosophy while most others would be col- 
lecting the material. For this statement con- 
firmation comes from an unexpected source. 
It is a habit of mine when I am studying any 



84 Manhood in Its American Type 

question to read the authorities on all sides, 
on those which support my views, and also on 
those that may oppose. Following this prac- 
tice I read a book, which was written by a 
Roman Catholic Doctor of Divinity, the sub- 
ject of which was the education of the youth 
in the communion of his church. The author 
was the Rev. John Talbot Smith, and the 
work he published was written for home con- 
sumption, and with little idea that it ever 
would stray outside his own fold. For this 
reason doubtless there were in the book com- 
plaints and admissions which it would have 
been something less than judicious to lay be- 
fore the general public, especially if many of 
them were Protestants. Now it is commonly 
understood to be the settled policy of Rome in 
her schedules of education to internationalize 
her schools, particularly those of collegiate 
and of higher grade, and to have the hours 
of recitation and of recreation the same in 
them all, and the same studies offered, and 



American Traits and Characteristics 85 

the same rate of progress required. Under 
the Roman system it is the plan to transfer 
teachers from school to school, and to enable 
this to be done at all, to transfer a teacher of 
languages from a school in Paris to a school 
in Vienna, or a teacher of philosophy from a 
school in London to a school in Washington, 
the arrangement of hours and of studies and 
even of text books must be as described. But 
Dr. Smith raises his voice against the rigor 
of this ironclad educational system, especially 
when it is applied to the curriculum of Cath- 
olic schools in America. And he grounds his 
protest on the postulate that the American 
boy, whether Irish- American, or of some oth- 
er complicated American descent, is of keener 
perception, of more agile mind, than the Ger- 
man, the English or the Irish boy; and that 
he will resent the restrictions imposed by the 
system that prevails in the Catholic schools of 
Europe ; and also because this Irish- American 
or French-American boy learns so much more 



86 Manhood in Its American Type 

readily than the average boy in Europe, it is 
an imposition on him and on the Church to 
hold him back to the same rate of progress 
that has been set for the boy of more sluggish 
mind. All of which goes to establish the con- 
tention that alertness, the ability to observe 
quickly and to acquire quickly, and the power 
to pass swift and accurate judgments, is a con- 
spicuous endowment of the American man. 

A second characteristic of the American 
man is that he is eminently and habitually 
practical. He is everlastingly up and doing, 
and for the most part what he is doing is well 
worth while. We are justly regarded as the 
busiest people on the planet, and we transact 
more business in business hours than any oth- 
er business men anywhere. We are experts in 
the doctrine of uses. It was some cute Ameri- 
can who broached the pithy question, ''What's 
the use of putting up with a useful thing that 
you can't use?" With precisely that thought 
in his sub-consciousness the busy American 



American Traits and Characteristics 87 

wastes no time or energy over an implement 
or a machine that has outlived its usefulness. 
The instant that it is worn out, out it goes into 
the discard, and the better implement or ma- 
chine takes its place. 

The American prides himself on having the 
the best tools in the world; the best saws, the 
best chisels, the best shovels; all are the best 
that can be manufactured, and each one has a 
special form that is particularly adapted for 
the particular use to which it is to be put. 

The ax-handle was a straight stick. It 
was not a handy contrivance for our Ameri- 
can, for it lacked balance; and worse still, it 
was liable to slip through his hands when in 
service. So some bright chap — his name ought 
to be recorded in letters of gold on the scroll 
of fame far above some that have gotten 
there because of their skill in killing men by 
wholesale — some bright chap whittled out a 
hickory ax-helve with just the right curves, 
flattened a trifle on the sides so that it would 



88 Manhood in Its American Type 

hold the head to a true stroke, and with a 
bulge at the end that enabled the workman to 
get a fast grip when dealing a heavy stroke; 
and ever since American ax-helves have been 
made on that model, and any woodsman who 
knows his trade wants just that pattern for 
his ax-helve and no other. 

An Englishman invented the first stationary 
steam engine for the purpose of pumping wa- 
ter from the lower level of mines, and anoth- 
er Englishman built the first locomotive en- 
gine for travel by rail. But it was the Ameri- 
can, Robert Fulton, who wondered why an 
engine could not be made to propel a boat, 
and behold, the Clermont stirring up the wat- 
ers of the Hudson with her splashing pad- 
dles; and with her came the inauguration of 
steamship transportation by river and sea. 

But are Americans so very practical ? Have 
we no dreamers and idealists who can lead us 
away from a stolid material existence into the 
realm of the intellectual and the spiritual? 



American Traits and Characteristics 89 

Surely with our vast population there must be 
some of our number who devote themselves 
to the cultivation of thought and seek to give 
it force and direction. And of a truth such 
we have ; dreamers who dream, and seers who 
see visions; but with all their flights into the 
empyrean of fancy they are averse to getting 
their heads so far above the clouds that they 
cannot hold to solid facts. Poets we certainly 
have, brilliant poets; and preachers, eloquent 
and profound; and philosophers who can dis- 
course learnedly and convincingly of the con- 
stitution of the universe and of the human 
soul ; but there is this to be said of American 
poets, preachers and philosophers, that with 
all of their venturesome excursions into the 
realm of transcendental speculation they make 
sure that their thought shall be regulated and 
controlled by the gyroscope of reality. 

Morse was a dreamer, and so was Cyrus 
Field; but their fancies gave the world the 
electric telegraph and the Atlantic cables. 



90 Manhood in Its American Type 

Langley and the Wright brothers dreamed of 
soaring aloft into the skies along with the 
eagle and the albatross. Langley had the 
right theory, but he lacked the engine that 
could give his ship the momentum for a sus- 
tained flight, and when his well devised air- 
craft took a header into the Potomac the ca- 
tastrophe broke his heart. The Wright 
brothers consumed sixteen years in their pre- 
liminary experiments with their glider, and 
then when they had mastered its secret they 
constructed an air-ship that was the pioneer 
of practical aviation. Graham Bell forced a 
wire to talk like a man, or a woman ; and Edi- 
son toiled in his laboratory till he was able to 
"can" a speech, or a song, as the housewife 
"puts up" her cherries or peaches to be 
brought out when wanted at a later day. 

In New York City the land became im- 
mensely valuable. In the down town district 
one might plaster a building lot all over with 
dollar bills, and still the owner would call for 



American Traits and Characteristics 91 

more before he would exchange the land for 
the money. But there was plenty of room to 
be had overhead, and it was there for nothing 
more than the trouble of building up to it. 
But how to get there was the problem, for 
when you pile brick upon brick, and stone up- 
on stone, you presently arrive at a point where 
the weight above will crush the lower courses. 
But some practical American conceived the 
notion that he could construct a skeleton 
frame of steel beams, and that he could make 
this sustain the weight of his brick or stone. 
So he ran up his steel skeleton, and filled in 
the spaces with a wall, and so he was able to 
extend his sky-scrapers up ten, or twenty, or 
sixty stories above the ground, till in the vast 
height of the structure it dwarfed the tallest 
church spires in the vicinity into insignificance. 
One such edifice on Broadway, the tallest in 
the country, holds a tenant population of ten 
thousand people, and its express elevators 
driven by electricity race up and down, rival- 



92 Manhood in Its American Type 

ing the speed of express trains on terra firma. 

A couple of years ago there was a bridge to 
be constructed over a deep gorge in Africa. In 
the regular order of events the contract would 
have gone to an English firm, but in this in- 
stance open bids were invited. The shortest 
time in which any of the contractors of Eu- 
rope would engage to put up that bridge was a 
year and a half. An American firm presented 
a bid to draw all the plans and have the bridge 
in place in six months after the papers had 
been signed. The foreign builders scouted 
the proposition as preposterous and impossi- 
ble. The contract was awarded to the Amer- 
ican firm and the bridge was ready for traffic 
within the limit of specification. 

It was an American, Mr. Frederic W. Tay- 
lor, who has worked out the science of indus- 
trial efficiency. Its most popular example 
comes from the art of laying brick. From the 
time of the Pharaohs workmen have been lay- 
ing brick in about the same fashion, as one 



American Traits and Characteristics 93 

may see by examination of the pictures painted 
on the walls of tombs in Egypt, where there 
are representations of all sorts of handicrafts 
in operation; and the masons have imagined 
that this old way was the best and the only 
way. But Mr. Taylor studied the motions 
of the bricklayers, the motions that were re- 
quired to pick up a brick, to spread the mor- 
tar, and to set the brick where it was to stay, 
and he declared that about half of the motions 
that the bricklayers had the habit of making 
were useless and wasteful. When by his di- 
rection these useless motions were discarded 
it was seen that the same man could lay twice 
as many brick in a given time and with no 
more fatigue. The like principle is now be- 
ing applied to many trades and handicrafts, 
with mutual advantage to the workman and 
to his employer. 

At such practical things as these the Amer- 
ican has been occupied for a couple of cen- 
turies, and he is likely to keep on making im- 



94 Manhood in Its American Type 

provements in all directions where he is en- 
gaged, so long as his active mind continues 
to work freely, and his hand retains its prac- 
tical skill. 

A very amiable trait of our American man 
is that he is regularly and consistently good 
humored. In constitution he is a bundle of 
nerves, for he is sensitive to all that occurs 
about him; but he is not "nervous" in the 
sense that he must jump and fidget and rave 
at every petty annoyance. In a way he may 
be said to possess a philosophical turn of 
mind, for he has no notion that the universe 
has been specially greased so as to run smooth- 
ly for his particular convenience. He under- 
stands that mishaps and disappointments are 
bound to happen, and that not a few of them 
are to come about where he stands. He 
recognizes them as a necessary part of the 
scheme of living, and feels that they are to be 
faced and overcome, rather than that they be 
let to overcome him. And so he is not 



American Traits and Characteristics 95 

"touchy" and quarrelsome; and though he 
will put up a good fight when he is forced to 
it, he never sets a chip on his shoulder, nor 
does he start out on the hunt for trouble till 
trouble comes hunting him. If some reverse 
befalls him for a moment, he will not concede 
that he has been downed. He seems to be 
made of whalebone and india rubber, for such 
is his elasticity of temperament that the hard- 
er he is flung to the ground, the swifter and 
higher his rebound. A business loss will not 
paralyze his ambition, for he pulls himself to- 
gether and lets loose twice the energy that he 
displayed before. If he is on a journey, and 
his train has a hot box, and he is likely to lose 
a close connection and with it an important 
engagement, he does not scowl and swear, but 
makes the best of the situation and goes about 
trying to cheer up his fellow passengers. Un- 
der similar circumstances his English brother 
would be likely to be stalking about, and fum- 
ing and fretting, and vowing that he will sue 



g6 Manhood in Its American Type 

the company, or write a letter complaining of 
the vileness of the service and have it printed 
in the Times. But the American laughs at all 
this display of irritation, and as for himself 
he sets about utilizing his spare time in check- 
ing up his orders. In a situation that sets the 
Gaul to dancing in a frenzy of passion, the 
American is calm and collected, and while oth- 
ers may waste their vitality in curses and emp- 
ty gesticulations, he is planning a way of es- 
cape from the predicament. Time and again 
in America we have suffered some great mis- 
fortune, a sweeping conflagration in a great 
city, or a frightful flood like those of Dayton 
and Galveston so recently; and time and again 
while the fires were still raging, or the mad 
waters were pouring through their business 
offices, our American merchants have been 
telegraphing contractors, and ordering mater- 
ial for new buildings, which were commenced 
the instant the wreckage was cleared away. 
For this calm imperturbability of the 



American Traits and Characteristics 97 

American temperament, no doubt the alert- 
ness of his mind is largely responsible; for he 
is prone to see the ridiculous in any event, if 
there is anything ridiculous to see. This fact 
finds expression in the saying that the Ameri- 
can is gifted with a sense of humor. In fact 
America has created her own school of humor 
under the leadership of such artists of the 
quaint and ludicrous as Artemus Ward, Josh 
Billings, James Russell Lowell — it was he 
who created the Hosea Biglow, of the Hosea 
Biglow Papers — Mark Twain and Peter 
Dunne, and the host of funny men who write 
up the nonsense page in the magazines. 

When a knot of American travelers get to- 
gether in the smoking room of a Pullman car, 
or of an ocean liner, they will swap side-split- 
ting narratives, during the rendition of which 
the speaker will maintain the gravity of a 
graven image, while the others are doubled up 
with laughter. As you listen you wonder where 
all the humorous incidents originate, but the 



98 Manhood in Its American Type 

wonder ceases when you reflect that all the way 
from Maine to Texas there are men in every 
rank and station from whom drolleries and 
witticisms drop naturally, and in a profusion 
which would make the fortune of a profes- 
sional jokesmith. Some years ago a book ap- 
peared in Central New York entitled David 
Harum. It described a genial horsetrader, 
whose trades and jests presently became wide- 
ly current. But there was a real "David 
Harum," under another name, and he was 
overflowing with oddities and curious inci- 
dents, many of them quite as ludicrous, if not 
more so, than any that the book immortalized. 
I have personal acquaintance with some dry 
geniuses, who cannot speak ten sentences with- 
out setting free some comical quirk, which 
proves them to be true humorists, and they 
are but examples of thousands of others. 

The commendable point of this side of the 
American man is that his nonsense is clean 
and pure, with no odor of the pit about it, 



American Traits and Characteristics 99 



and no taint of cynicism or malevolence. He 
reports the comical in some comical happen- 
ing, not for the sake of harming the person 
who happened to be betrayed into a ludicrous 
scrape, but simply to air the comicality itself. 

American statesmen on the stump will clinch 
an argument with a humorous story, and the 
preachers at some great convention will en- 
liven their dinner hour and clear the cobwebs 
from their brains by exchange of witty repar- 
tee and incident. 

Mr. Lincoln, the great President, had this 
sense of humor charmingly developed, and 
in him it was really a saving element, for by 
help of it he had relief from the burdens of 
state. Often too it was his means of extricat- 
ing himself from a perplexing pressure of im- 
portunity. For when some visitor insisted on 
his granting some request which he regarded 
inadvisable, or of approving some measure 
which might be detrimental to the army or to 
the country, he would relate some apt story, 



ioo Manhood in Its American Type 

which would let the visitor down easy, and 
send him away with a smile, and possibly 
grateful in his heart, if his request had to 
be denied, that the act was accomplished so 
gracefully. 

Fortunate it is for our American that he 
cultivates this sunny disposition, for it saves 
him much wear and tear of nervous tissue, and 
certainly it renders him far more genial and 
companioniable an associate in business or so- 
cial life. 



IV 

AMERICAN TRAITS CONCLUDED 



AMERICAN TRAITS CONCLUDED 

OUR man of the American type is 
courageous. In the face of calam- 
ity or peril he is habitually calm, 
and is buoyed up by a spirit of 
dauntless virility. This is his natural heritage 
and is what we should expect from him as a 
son of the men of enterprise and boundless 
audacity who laid the foundations of this 
Western Republic. There was a world of 
valor in that little band at Scrooby in Eng- 
land, who held fast to their worship of God 
in spite of all the threats of the archbishop 
and the throne, and who when England was 
too set in her bigotry of ecclesiasticism for 
them to endure it longer sailed away from 
Leyden to Massachusetts and imperishable 
glory. 

And their sons displayed a like courage 
when at Lexington they braved the muskets 
103 



104 Manhood in Its American Type 

of the serried columns of the king's troops, 
and when at Philadelphia they voted the Dec- 
laration of Independence, and subscribed their 
names to that immortal document, when in 
so doing they could almost feel the tightening 
of the halter about their necks. It was a grim 
jest of one of their number, who was urging 
the necessity of the patriots being true to each 
other to the end, and condensed a whole 
speech into the striking phrase, "We must all 
hang togetner, if we don't wish to hang sep- 
arately.*' That bold signature of John Han- 
cock on the original draft of the Declaration 
stands out still as a challenge of defiance to 
Royal Governors to do their very worst. 

It is in like fashion that the American braces 
himself to overcome difficulties and surmount 
obstacles. That inscription in Spencer's 
poem, as posted over the gate of Busirane, 

"Be Bold, be bold, and evermore be bold," 
agrees well with his enterprising temper. 
With that ringing in his ear he could strike 



American Traits Concluded 105 

out into our western wilderness, staking his 
all upon the success of his venture. He es- 
tablished new industries and pushed them for- 
ward to amazing success. He laid out a new 
railway over the whole stretch of this conti- 
nent, in order to hold California fast to the 
Union in the Sixties, and he did this while he 
was engaged in the greatest war the world 
had known up to his day. And this enter- 
prise was all the more remarkable at that time, 
for it was the first instance recorded in his- 
tory of a great nation undertaking a work of 
continental magnitude, while its armies were 
engaged in a life and death struggle. Up to 
the Sixties, when any great nation sounded the 
war trumpet, it placed all its resources at the 
disposition of its generals, and every great 
economical improvement was halted till the 
era of peace was restored. But America 
pushed that Pacific Railway forward to com- 
pletion with one hand, while she was saving 
the Union with the other. What then may 



io6 Manhood in Its American Type 

she not attempt in the way of magnificent 
enterprises, when she can undertake them 
with both hands free and untramelled? 

Something of this adventurous spirit stands 
out unmistakably in the contruction of the 
Panama Canal, which France had prepared 
to dig, but which she was forced to abandon 
as beyond her powers. The tropical heat 
was too intense, the tropical rainfall too cop- 
ious, the tropical jungle too dense, and the 
tropical diseases that were rife through all 
the region of the Isthmus combined together 
for the discouragement of the French Com- 
pany, which abandoned the project as impossi- 
ble of execution. But America was not so 
easily disheartened. She obtained the French 
rights in the Canal by purchase, and began at 
the work in a great way. She made war upon 
the mosquitoes, and cleaned up the Canal Zone 
by modern methods of sanitation. Malaria 
and yellow fever were conquered, and the re- 
gion of the Isthmus which had been made so 



American Traits Concluded 107 

fatal to Frenchmen was transformed into a 
residential district in which the death rate was 
less than in many cities of the temperate zone. 
Armies of workmen, for whom good homes 
had been provided, and wholesome recreation 
also, to the end that their mental health should 
be conserved, swarmed over the back bone of 
the continent, and directed powerful streams 
of water to cut down the hills, while monster 
dredges carried forward the excavation till 
the water way was clear from ocean to ocean, 
and the Adantic and the Pacific were united 
in an enduring alliance. It was a work which 
in its magnitude, and particularly in the 
speed of its execution, far outranks the pyra- 
mids of Egypt, and which deserves even more 
than they to be ranked among the wonders of 
the world. 

And more recently, when France and Eng- 
land stood in need of an immense loan of 
money, in order to sustain the value of inter- 



108 Manhood in Its American Type 

national exchange which was running heavily 
against them, it was to America that they 
turned for financial aid. At the first there 
was speech of the enormous sum of a thou- 
sand million of dollars, but when it came to 
the point the amount was made five hundred 
million. No such financial transaction in a 
single operation had ever been attempted be- 
fore, but that did not disturb the confidence 
of American financiers in the resources or 
courage of their country. The French and 
English committeemen crossed the Atlantic 
and held their conferences with our bankers 
in New York and Chicago. A few weeks 
were given to the arrangement of details. The 
French and English governments voted ap- 
proval, the men who had been in conference 
signed the contract, and the thing was done. 
In fact the loan was largely over-subscribed. 
It was the most stupendous and the most 
courageous financial enterprise ever undertak- 
en in the annals of time. 



American Traits Concluded 109 

The American man is chivalrous, and dis- 
plays this fine trait in superior measure. Very 
probably his right to this distinction might 
be subject to question in some foreign capitals, 
for he is not inclined to maintain his honor by 
personal contest, either by fist or pistol. The 
duello as the arbiter of gentlemanly differ- 
ences has gone out of fashion on American 
soil. Partly owing to this fact our Americans 
are liable to be misconstrued and misinter- 
preted among other nationalities. Europe of- 
ten makes her estimate of us as cute, capable 
and over conceited and quite too much bent 
on the chase of the nimble dollar to be actual- 
ly high-minded and magnanimous. We are 
erecting magnificent mansions, speeding about 
in palatial yachts, covering our wives with a 
blaze of jewels, and scattering our cash all 
over Europe with a careless prodigality, which 
princes may not emulate, at least not till they 
have annexed an American consort, and along 
with her a towering bank account. In all the 



no Manhood in Its American Type 

hostelries abroad it is the current belief that 
all Americans are millionaires; an error which 
they might promptly dissipate were they to 
visit us and view for themselves how moder- 
ate circumstances here are the rule, and the 
having millions is the exception. 

All the same the lavishness affected by our 
Americans who travel abroad is to be taken 
as the extreme and the incidental. The Amer- 
ican without doubt is a money-getter, but he 
does not pursue money so much for its own 
sake, as for what it may bring. He seeks it 
as a means to certain uses. And some of these 
uses are of the most beneficent character, for 
they are nothing less than the founding of col- 
leges and hospitals, and providing them with 
an equipment, which for convenience and 
completeness is unparalled. For an instance 
of such munificence it needs but to cite the 
Institute for Medical Research in New York 
City. In this great institution new surgical 
methods have been tried out and approved, 



American Traits Concluded in 

and obscure diseases have been studied, and 
remedies for them have been discovered 
which afford relief for human ills that here- 
tofore have been considered hopelessly incur- 
able. The institutions of this sort that Amer- 
ica provides in profusion have won for her 
a deserved recognition among the thoughtful 
everywhere. 

A notable instance of real beneficence is that 
of the Mayo brothers of Rochester, Minne- 
sota. At the first these gentlemen were sim- 
ply obscure country surgeons. They com- 
menced practice after thorough preparation 
in a little town which had under eight thou- 
sand inhabitants. There they established a 
private hospital in which they conducted the 
severest surgical operations with a brilliancy 
an audacity, a skill and a success which won 
them national recognition and international 
fame. Their little town through their pro- 
fessional superiority has become a miracle 
place of healing, a center to which patients 



112 Manhood in Its American Type 

come thronging from all parts of the world, 
and to which distinguished practitioners of 
their own profession make pilgrimage from 
the leading hospitals of Europe in order to 
observe and imitate the orignal methods of 
these accomplished brothers. And now these 
men, who have prospered in the conduct of 
their profession, have set apart a trust fund 
of two millions of dollars to provide for the 
foundation and maintenance of a great hos- 
pital, in which their methods are to be repro- 
duced and perpetuated, so that their brothers 
and sisters in misfortune may continue to have 
relief from their disorders long after these 
benefactors of their kind have passed from 
the land of the living. 

When we observe our American manhood 
so solicitously concerned for the welfare of 
others, and promoting it by the help of such 
splendid beneficences, we can no longer ac- 
cuse it of being immersed in materialism, but 
on the contrary must recognize our American 



American Traits Concluded 113 



man as the knightly soul of the Twentieth 
century. The American man is chivalrous: 
chivalrous toward womanhood. Travelers 
on their return from abroad inform us that 
the gentlemen of Europe are chivalrous 
toward women that they know or toward wo- 
men of their own social position, but they also 
tell us that the men of Europe, setting aside a 
conspicuous few, are vampires toward unpro- 
tected women, with whom they are unac- 
quainted, and whom they humiliate by their 
insulting advances. Ladies whom I know 
well, and whose word I have every reason to 
trust completely, have told me how when they 
were in some foreign capital, they have met 
officers of the army in full uniform, three or 
four of them together, who have monopolized 
the sidewalk and forced the lady into the 
street, and sometimes this happened when the 
mud in the gutter was almost ankle deep. Had 
they known the lady they would have been all 
bows and graciousness, and have taken to 



114 Manhood in Its American Type 

the gutter themselves rather than cause her 
inconvenience, but for the strange lady they 
had no politeness to spare. No such incident 
could occur in America, not even in the slum 
district of the cities. Here womanhood is 
honored, known or unknown, and is assisted 
and protected. So long as she minds her own 
affairs and is self-respecting, any woman can 
travel unattended through the length and 
breadth of the land, as safely as if she were 
folded in her father's arms; and in case any 
brute in human form ventures to molest her 
by word or act, she has but to lift her voice 
to array all decent men, even if utter strangers 
in her defence. The American man idealizes 
Woman. As a child she is the charm and fav- 
orite of the home. When she marries, her 
husband toils for her early and late, and lav- 
ishes on her everything he has. With our 
men of the better class the wife does about 
as she pleases. She asks for what she wants, 
and obtains it when in reason, and frequently 



American Traits Concluded 115 

also when it is out of reason. She gives elab- 
orate entertainments, when her husband were 
he to indicate his preference would far rather 
have none of them, so that he might have a 
quiet domestic evening at home. When he 
covers her with jewels it is because he desired 
to give her a pleasure. She may start off on 
her travels and wander all over her own coun- 
try, or all over Europe, during which time he 
is left to his own devices; but though his 
heart may be lonely, he will not suffer a mur- 
mur to escape. The American woman, be- 
cause of the chivalry of her mate, is the un- 
crowned queen of the age. 

The American man loves children. He 
loves to see them. He loves to see them 
happy. He loves to see them growing up 
toward strength and usefulness. He delights 
to extend them care and protection. Where 
in all the annals of chivalry will you find the 
knightly spirit better exemplified than it was 
shown on the Lusitania, when she was sinking 



n6 Manhood in Its American Type 

into the sea ? On her way to her English port, 
while off the Irish coast, with no note of warn- 
ing whatever to her passengers to prepare for 
saving their lives, the fatal torpedo smote her 
in the vitals, and she was dropping by the 
head for the final plunge. In that awful mo- 
ment the conduct of all the men, save one 
cowardly cabin steward, was sublime. All but 
that one, whether British, American, or oth- 
ers, were eager to help the women and chil- 
dren into the boats, and for the men to go 
with them only as they were necessary for giv- 
ing help, or when there were no more waiting 
to be saved. But first and foremost among 
the brave men of that hour was the American 
millionaire, a man of the class that the 
thoughtless cultivate a habit of sneering at 
and reviling. In that moment of soul trial, 
when all hearts were bare before the sight of 
God and man, Alfred G. Vanderbilt proved 
himself more than the man of wealth: he was 
the chivalrous American. That word of his 



American Traits Concluded 117 

to his chauffeur, as he hurried down into the 
inky blackness between decks where the lights 
had all been extinguished by the explosion, 
will live on forever. "Come," said he, "let 
us save the kiddies." Caring for the children 
then, with no consideration for his own life; 
seeking to save them, although he was almost 
certain to perish in the attempt, was his su- 
preme thought, a thought characteristic of 
the supreme development of American man- 
hood. 

American manhood is honest. This is to 
be declared and maintained in spite of all the 
rascals who have shown themselves to be dis- 
honest, and in consequence have been sent to 
the penitentiary; and in spite of all their 
brother rascals who so far have escaped the 
toils of justice, and also in spite of all the dem- 
agogues and muckrakers who spend so much 
time in trying to cheat the people into believ- 
ing that every statesman is a scheming fraud, 
and every manufacturer is a slave-driver, and 



n8 Manhood in Its American Type 

every man who has attained eminence in relig- 
ious circles is a Uriah Heep or a Gradgrind. 
Were our social and business world half so 
corrupt as some of the industrious purveyors 
of libel are striving to make out, it would ex- 
plode before morning with the over-pressure 
of its own foul gases. But the world moves 
on, and does not explode, and this proves 
that it is better than some of the too credu- 
lous give it credit for. 

When we get to the rock bottom facts in 
the case it will be found that our American 
industrial system and our commercial prac- 
tices are based on the solid foundation of 
character and good will. 

A few years back there grew up a suspicion 
that some of our great business concerns were 
being conducted on lines that gave them an 
unfair advantage over their competitors. In 
some quarters there were secret rebates in the 
sale of transportation, and also undue pres- 
sure under which the smaller business houses 



American Traits Concluded 119 

were being forced to the wall. When this was 
understood, laws were passed which would 
correct injustice in business transactions. In 
notable instances some of the great corpora- 
tions cleaned house for themselves before the 
new laws went into operation. When the in- 
justice was brought to their attention they cor- 
rected it themselves. 

The conduct of our leading banks is pro- 
verbial for efficiency and for the safety of the 
funds of clients and depositors. 

The chief mercantile firms of the country 
have the intention to give full value for value 
received. Our vast credit system, which ren- 
ders possible our extended trade, both home 
and foreign, has for its corner-stone the con- 
viction that the mass of our business men in- 
tend to meet their financial obligations when 
they mature. This is a wholesome condition, 
but if it were to be disturbed from any cause; 
if the idea should gain ground that the Amer- 
ican business man is turning toward dishon- 



120 Manhood in Its American Type 

est practices, that he generally is laying plans 
to default on his contracts and cheat his cred- 
itors, we would be smitten by a commercial 
panic that would blast our business fabric with 
the violence of a tropical tornado. 

But there is no such prospect in sight. 
American business men are calling for the 
square deal all around, and for the suppres- 
sion of all trickery and chicane. The politi- 
cian who barters his influence for position or 
cash soon has no position. The voters will 
not endorse his misconduct and will elect him 
to abide at home. And the voter who sells his 
vote, and the go-between who bribes the vot- 
er, are both of them scorned and despised, 
and are liable to be indicted under the corrupt 
practice act, and given a place of entertain- 
ment where they will have leisure to reflect on 
the development of political honor and hon- 
esty. 

And so on every side there are higher ideals 
before us, higher ideals in the administration 



American Traits Concluded 121 



of law, higher ideals in the conduct of elec- 
tions, and higher ideals in the administration 
of public funds. Grover Cleveland set the 
standard in his apt expression, "Public office 
is a public trust." And the atmosphere of 
business in this country at the present time in- 
dicates the intention to adjust industrial con- 
ditions in a manner to promote the payment 
of a living wage, to give proper compensation 
to workmen for injuries sustained while en- 
gaged in labor, and to circumscribe the hours 
of labor for women and children, so that 
neither may be injured by working to excess. 
Possibly the greatest outcry against the 
honesty of American men is that which is di- 
rected at the integrity of Wall street, which 
many persons because of lack of accurate in- 
formation are prone to regard as the centre 
and cesspool of financial iniquity. Hardly a 
day passes without some cross roads orator, 
or his brother of the soap box, vociferating 
the accusation that Wall Street is a den of 



122 Manhood in Its American Type 

thieves and gamblers. But Wall street is not 
so bad as it is painted. Those who are fa- 
miliar with the methods employed in the pur- 
chase and sale of securities as conducted in 
the Stock Exchange have reason to smile at 
the current libels on our bankers and brokers. 
The broker who has a seat in the Exchange 
buys and sells securities as an agent for his 
customers. He does not trade on his own 
account at all. Were he to commence specu- 
lating in stocks and bonds for himself, or were 
he to risk the capital of his firm by ventures 
on the turn of the market, he would immedi- 
ately forfeit the confidence of his business as- 
sociates, and his customers would desert him 
as soon as they discovered that he was engaged 
in such practices. But this does not happen. 
The broker receives orders to buy or to sell 
from his clients, and he has as good a right to 
buy and sell securities on the market as the 
grocer has to buy sugar and tea and sell them 
over the counter, or as the country merchant 



American Traits Concluded 123 

has to buy apples and eggs and ship them to 
his city buyer. 

No, it is not the banker or broker in Wall 
Street who is to be taken to task for plunging 
and gambling, and we must look otherwhere 
to find the culprit who is giving the street its 
bad name. As a rule the real offender is 
someone from outside, some street speculator, 
some clerk in an office, or some business man 
who wants to take a "flier," and who directs 
his broker to buy or sell, when he knows as 
little about the actual value of securities he is 
trading in as he does of the number of hairs 
in the moutaches of the man in the moon; or 
perhaps it is the man from Podunk Corners 
who wires his broker to sell a thousand Steel 
common short on a bull market, and in conse- 
quence has been shaven and shorn so close to 
the hide that it would be hard to tell whether 
what he lost were lamb's wool or bristles. 
That is the sort of man who overloads the 
circumambient ether with his ululations about 



124 Manhood in Its American Type 

thieves and gamblers. But if his little ven- 
ture had netted him a thousand or two, instead 
of cleaning him out, he would probably never 
have peeped a word about gambling, though 
he himself was the naughty party all the 
time. 

As a matter of fact the business of the 
Stock Exchange is conducted on the basis of 
absolute honesty and good faith. A broker 
who might be suspected of a shady transac- 
tion would be warned by the Governors of the 
Exchange, and if after that he were caught in 
actual dishonesty he would be shut out from 
the floor and his seat sold at auction. Much 
of the business of the Exchange is conducted 
in a din that is deafening, and which precludes 
the use of ordinary speech, and securities are 
disposed of at an advance or a drop of a six- 
teenth, or an eighth, which is indicated by a 
motion of the finger, and one transaction fol- 
lows so close on the heels of another that the 
operator hardly has time to note its figure on 



American Traits Concluded 125 

his tablets. Here would be the finest chance 
imaginable for the man who wished to cheat 
his neighbor to claim misunderstanding of a 
bid, or of a sale. But it is seldom that such a 
question is ever raised, even though the trade 
means the loss of hundreds or thousands to 
the one or the other. 

As a rule then we must conclude that the 
American man is honest himself, and that he 
delights to find the same trait in others about 
him. No, I confess that I am proud of the 
honor and honesty of our Americans. They 
love the right and they wish to do right, and 
when they find that some of their business 
methods are not up to the standard of con- 
scientious conviction, they will be found en- 
gaged in the task of altering them, and bring- 
ing their transactions up to the mark where 
they will square with the best and highest con- 
ceptions of commercial integrity. 

As a final characteristic of American man- 
hood to be mentioned now there is presented 



126 Manhood in Its American Type 

that generous spirit, which is keen to hear the 
plea of the world's distresses, and which ex- 
tends a ready hand to ameliorate the condi- 
tion of those who suffer from any serious ca- 
lamity. 

Years ago there were widespread famines 
in Ireland. Heavy rains had fallen, and a 
blight had ruined the potato crop, which was 
the main food supply of the country. Whole 
districts were reported in which the people 
were starving and dying by wholesale. When 
Ireland lifted up her anxious appeal America 
responded at once. Ships were laden at 
American docks with flour and other food 
products, and they crossed the sea under the 
American flag with their welcome cargoes. 
Of all help extended to Ireland in those fate- 
ful years, that which came from America was 
the most prompt and the most generous in 
amount. 

When a large part of Chicago was devas- 
tated by flame, and when the earthquake 



American Traits Concluded 127 

rocked and destroyed the main part of San 
Francisco, at the first news that came over the 
wires, preparations were made to send relief, 
and soon the heavy trains were thundering 
westward, laden with tents to shelter the 
homeless, and crowded with provisions of 
every sort to feed the hungry for weeks, till 
they were once more able to shift for them- 
selves. 

It is but recently that plucky little Belgium 
was reported to be starving because she was 
overrun by a hostile army, and the food that 
had been stored for feeding her citizens had 
been seized by the invaders and sent out of 
the country, or converted to the use of the 
army that come on its own invitation. In 
such case what could America do ? She might 
have said to herself that Belgium should not 
have resisted the army that sought to cross 
her borders. She might have said to herself 
that for her to feed the Belgians would be giv- 
ing aid and comfort indirectly to the con- 



128 Manhood in Its American Type 

querors, whose duty it was for themselves to 
feed the conquered. But it is not the way in 
America in time of emergency to hesitate and 
haggle and quibble over questions such as 
these, respecting the rights and wrongs of 
which posterity will be the judge. And so 
America's generous heart responded at once 
to the pressing need, and committees were 
formed and funds were solicited. The rich 
gave of their wealth, and the poorer gave 
their dimes and nickels, and the supplies were 
gathered and sent in splendid profusion. Al- 
together no less than seven millions was the 
valuation of food, clothing and hospital sup- 
plies that America poured into Belgium in the 
first year of her calamity. 

When the Lusitania went down off the 
coast of Ireland, carrying her sad toll of hun- 
dreds of lives, a thrill of horror convulsed our 
land from border to border. Abhorrence at 
the deed was not confined to any class or to 
any section of the nation, for the expression 



American Traits Concluded 129 

of indignation arose from every quarter at 
such wanton destruction of human life, and 
at the inexcusable blunder of killing women 
and children, who were hurried to their wat- 
ery grave absolutely innocent of any harm to 
those who perpetrated the outrage. The out- 
burst of wrath, which was so spontaneous and 
so widespread, created astonishment in the 
minds of some people in Central Europe, who 
seem to have been so constituted by nature or 
education that they saw nothing but a few 
lives cut short; and to be unable to compre- 
hend why America should be so incensed at 
the loss of a comparative few, while thou- 
sands were dying in the trenches, or on the 
open field of strife. They missed completely 
the difference which exists between the wan- 
ton killing of non-combatants, and the act of 
war when opposing armies contend against 
each other in battle array, and when both sides 
are well aware of the dangers which they in- 
cur. The difference of comprehension at this 



130 Manhood in Its American Type 

point marks the outstanding divergence on 
the part of the nations of Central Europe 
from the humanitarian ideals that rule in the 
soul of the man who is built and educated ac- 
cording to the American type. The Ameri- 
can man is a different creature from any that 
of those nations know, and for that reason 
they fail to understand his mental processes, 
or to see wherein certain procedures which 
they are very prone to take will meet with his 
instant and positive disapproval. 

And we who are Americans have cause to 
be heartily grateful for the kind of man who 
grows up on this side of the Atlantic; alert, 
and practical, and good-humored, and cour- 
ageous, and chivalrous, and generous, with a 
warm heart that swells with compassion for 
any world-wide sorrow; and have the right 
to thank God for the heritage which we enjoy 
in these worthy American traits, and to hold 
the conviction that this strong type of Ameri- 
can manhood is so well fixed and established, 



American Traits Concluded 131 

that we may feel secure in the confidence that 
it will survive and improve with the coming 
changes of coming time. 

Is it possible that this portrait of our aver- 
age American has been drawn with too free 
and too partial a hand? And yet there are 
others who will confirm the accuracy of the 
presentation, and will affirm that it is no ex- 
aggeration at all. That great Polish genius, 
the same who wrote Quo Vadis, that masterly 
picture of Christianity in the time of Nero, is 
an admirer of our race. In a letter sent last 
year to the Polish Committee of the Emer- 
gency Aid Association of New York City, 
Henri Sienkiewicz expressed the view that 
America is destined to become the conscience 
of the world. In this letter he remarks, 

"It seems to me that the principles of Chris- 
tian love and brotherhood, banished from Eu- 
rope, had to cross the ocean in search of ref- 
uge, and that they found it in the heart of the 
American citizen." 



132 Manhood in Its American Type 

From this he proceeds to say, and I can use 
no language which would be more fitting to 
express the thought, 

"Their generosity has saved thousands of 
unfortunates from starvation ; but the task of 
America is not yet accomplished; with God's 
help she will in the following years become 
the conscience of the world, and propagate 
the ideas of justice, such as the triumph of 
law over force, and the restitution of free- 
dom to all oppressed nations, the rehabilia- 
tion of these principles being the sole guaran- 
tee of peace and a happy future for al) man- 
kind." 



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